Brian Lehrer, Host of NPR’s Peabody Award Winning “The Brian Lehrer Show,” Is Guest Speaker for Library’s 2021 Salant Lecture

New Canaan Library is pleased to announce that Brian Lehrer will be guest lecturer for this fall’s annual Salant Lecture. Brian Lehrer is host of National Public Radio’s “The Brian Lehrer Show,” a daily WNYC call-in program that covers politics and life, locally and globally. Mr. Lehrer will speak via live videoconference on Thursday, September 16, 2021, at 7 PM EST. Please register online at newcanaanlibrary.org; Zoom sign in information will be provided upon registration
The Library is pleased to welcome back Lehrer and notes that the virtual format opens the event to a much larger audience than the Library was able to accommodate at his last in person Salant Lecture in early March 2020. The lecture series is named for Richard Salant, the late President of CBS news, and honors his dedication to integrity in broadcast journalism
With a retrospective view of the past year’s challenges, Lehrer will cover the pandemic, politics, New York, and related topics. Facilitating the talk will be Nancy Geary, Executive Director, New Canaan Museum & Historical Society. “I admire Brian Lehrer and the extraordinary work he does and look forward to an engaging conversation.” said Geary.
Brian Lehrer is host of “The Brian Lehrer Show”, WNYC Radio’s daily call-in program, covering politics and life, locally and globally. He also hosts “Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast”,

which focuses on national politics. The live show airs weekdays from 10am-noon on WNYC 93.9 FM, AM 820 and wnyc.org.
Called a “master interviewer” by The New York Times, Lehrer has also been defined as “doggedly on-the-ball “by The New Yorker. Editor David Remnick says Lehrer is “the equivalent of Lebron James or Steph Curry in the interviewing game,” and New York Magazine put him on its “dream dinner party guest list.”
The Brian Lehrer Show was recognized with a 2007 George Foster Peabody Award for “Radio That Builds Community Rather Than Divides.”
Political guests have ranged from Barack Obama and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Mitch McConnell and Boris Johnson, and beyond. Lehrer has been a questioner in televised New York City Mayoral Debates for every election since 1997. Cultural guests have included Wynton Marsalis, Patti Smith, Aaron Sorkin, Spike Lee, Margaret Atwood, and so many others.
Lehrer is also a commentator on local and national issues on television and in print. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, NY1, and The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. He has written op-ed pieces for publications including The New York Times, The Daily News, Newsday, and Slate.
Lehrer holds master’s degrees in public health from Columbia University and journalism from The Ohio State University and a bachelor’s in music and mass communications from the State University of New York at Albany.